


Helios Rising

by cirque



Category: Original Work
Genre: Far Future, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:29:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28676718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cirque/pseuds/cirque
Summary: It is her job to know their names. Amun, Arev, Tonatiuh, Shamash, Saule, Ri Gong Tai Yang Xing Jun. They are all of them sun gods; all of them dead. Helios, Surya, Christ. They wheel in the sky above like a thousand snuffed-out stars.
Relationships: Goddess of Endless Night & Priestess of a Dying Sun
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	Helios Rising

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadaras](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadaras/gifts).



It is her job to know their names. Amun, Arev, Tonatiuh, Shamash, Saule, Ri Gong Tai Yang Xing Jun. They are all of them sun gods; all of them dead. They had worshipped the sun for a million-some years, but when the sky blackened and the sun began to die, they perished too, leaving only the hot red glowy face of Ra above. Helios, Surya, Christ. They wheel in the sky above like a thousand snuffed-out stars.

Tesni is near sleep when the message comes through, bleeping indignantly at her. A big red box pops up on the screen, assaulting her vision in the low-lit observatory.  _ Unknown sender, _ it tells her.  _ Proceed with caution. _

She clicks through to the message. It takes a little while to load. This is not surprising; the computer hasn’t been serviced in several hundred years.

_ Greetings _ , the message says,  _ from another world. _

Tesni rolls her eyes and types back  _ Josh is this u? _

Then she realizes the message came through the priority inbox, and Josh wouldn’t label his attempts at humor ‘priority’ unless he wanted a slap or two. It must be genuine. It can’t be genuine. She hasn’t received a genuine message since she’d drawn the short straw and got stranded at the temple three years back. No one has.

She holds her breath, and types  _ who is this? _

It takes a moment to process and then another moment to send, and then there’s that awkward period of time where she’s waiting for the other person to reply, and she feels the agony of impatience in her belly. She is invested now.

“It better fucking not be Josh,” she says to the empty, dusty temple. It is a one-room thing, once an office, then an observatory, and finally a temple. When you worship the sun, science and religion become one. And what about when the sun decides to die? Tesni looks through the barred window at the empty, dusty landscape that stretches on ad nauseum.

A reply comes through.  _ I am a being from far away, I I I I am a being I I am far away. _

“Well that clears that up,” Tesni sighs. It’s probably Josh.

_ Josh _ , she smashes the keys in frustration.  _ Don’t message me at work.  _

Another minute of agony, and then:

_ I am here in service of the Endless Night. Do I have your permission to land? _

What…? Tesni frowns. This is weird even for Josh. 

_ Land what? _

_ My ship. I have travelled far in search of your world, but I am here at last. May I disembark? _

_ Sure, _ she laughs,  _ why not? _

She presses her face to the eyepiece, looking up through the ‘scope that rests on the roof. The sky is blackish red, as ever, and empty but for the broiling of the angry sun. She adjusts the angle, but still she can see nothing. What does she expect? There hasn’t been a ship on Earth in five hundred years, why would they come now?

They didn’t train her for spaceships. She has no idea what to do. They told her all she had to do is watch the skies, check on the sun’s progression, send data back to the colony. She’s only here to push buttons, maybe take the occasional photograph. She isn’t trained for spaceships.

The screen flashes again, and a little notification sounds rings through the empty hut.

_ I will beam directly to your establishment, yes? _

_ Yes, _ Tesni types out, then looks around at the temple. It is a mess. It is not what it should be. The sun deserves a palace, like the Babylonians of old, like the wali and the saints. 

There is a blossoming of light, like a contained explosion, and the walls of the temple rattle and shake. It is not the sturdiest of buildings. The light fills every available space, glowing hotly in the small hut, burning the curling edges of paper.

Tesni screws her eyes shut, clamping a hand over her face. Too late. Her retinas burn and, when she pulls her fingers away they bear blood. Burst vessels.

“What,” she manages, “the fuck is going on?”

The light wanes and Tesni can see again, though afterimages flood her vision.

There, in the centre of the hut, looking around at the meagre temple, is a young woman dressed entirely in black.

She looks thoroughly out of place in the desert. Her clothes are  _ pressed, _ immaculate even. Her shoes are slippers of velvet inlaid with little rock crystals. She wears no lenses; the sunlight doesn’t even seem to bother her.

“What the fuck indeed,” the woman murmurs, looking around at the temple. It has seen better days. She runs her finger across a section of the wall and it comes away laden with dust. She regards the computer with vague distaste. “This is the temple? Surely I’ve arrived at the wrong place?”

Tesni feels a little defensive. Alright, so the temple is kind of a mess, a visual disaster, but everything is these days. The whole planet’s a mess. She rankles. “I do my best.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“Look,” Tesni’s patience gets thin. “Who even are you? Only priestesses are allowed in the temple. And you ain’t dressed like a priestess.” She gestures downwards at her own camo jacket, the soft khaki trousers, the thick combat boots.

The woman laughs as though this is the funniest joke of the year. 

She composes herself, but the smile still clings to her eyes. “Who do you think the temples are  _ for _ ?”

“Inti. Sól. Apollo. The big guy upstairs.” She points out the window at the sun as it boils away.

“You still worship the sun? How primitive.”

Tesni is liking this woman less and less as the conversation goes on.

“Who are you?” she repeats.

The woman sobers up. “I am your new goddess.”

Oh. So she’s crazy. 

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” Tesni says.

“Yes,” the woman replies, “I see you have your hands full here. So much to do.” She rolls her eyes.

“I already have a god, thank you.”

“But he’s dying?”

“It’s been dying for a billion years. That’s how stars work. It’s not my job to judge. I just worship.” She points to the computer screen which, though dusty, still bears evidence of her recent communication with the colony. 

A new message blinks in her inbox: the scheduled update. She sighs. 

“Will this take long?”

The woman is still assessing the temple. She is not impressed.

“I’m a Goddess,” she says, “come to visit you in mortal form. I wear this skin as a costume. I am a herald of the endless night, the long dark that will eventually consume this planet.”

“Well you’re a little early,” Tesni points out. “This planet is still very much habitable. Life is tough, yeah, but possible. Maybe come back in another billion years?”

“You still worship your star?” There is confusion in her voice, though it echoes with authority. Maybe she really is a goddess? “I was told humanity has evolved past sun worship?”

“‘Worship’ is a difficult turn of phrase… ‘Rely on’, would be more exact,” Tesni replies. “Our planet is plagued daily by random bursts of solar radiation. Hence,” she points to her eyes, “the glasses. Everyone has cancer, near enough, and it rains maybe once a year. We haven’t grown crops in millenia; everything is prefabricated and downloaded. We use the sun for power; solar energy is the one thing we have in abundance.”

The goddess-woman chews this over. She nods. “I see. You  _ are  _ in need of a new deity, then?”

“Sure,” Tesni gives up, “as long as you don’t get in my way. I have about a dozen emails I need to deal with.” She takes her seat back at the desk. 

The woman stands behind her chair. She emanates a coolness, an icy chill. This, at least, is welcome.

“You might want to take a seat,” Tesni offers, “this could take a while. Like, a billion whiles.”

The woman perches on the seat beside Tesni’s, impossibly graceful. A silvery swirl of moonlight stirs beneath her skin, betraying divinity. Tesni shrugs. Whatever.

“I have all the time in the world,” the woman muses, and Tesni returns to her work.


End file.
